But, some of the details I've worked out about Perstra's people include the fact that they're about eight lightyears from the site of one of the major battles of the Dominion War. They rushed to warp tech because having your telescopes report a period of a few hours where someones so near is throwing around antimatter explosives like popcorn is concerning. The Sethrians know perfectly well that there's somebody around with FTL and weapons, and have been building a fairly hefty planetary defense network - like a black powder musket ball, a big enough fusion warhead will ruin your day at any tech level. So, directly into high orbit has an unacceptable risk of somebody twitching at the wrong button, while a more ginger approach sends the same 'we've been watching carefully' message that meeting Disciple does.

(The faction that expected their system to be monitored, incidentally, were convinced that the Aliens would come in shooting if they noticed what was going on, and so they didn't think a first contact packet would be needed either.)

The Klingon/Federation dustup is also why they're getting a relatively minor ship like the Ashanti, rather than the current Starfleet flagship dropping by. Sonok was... simply who was available, despite the fact that, no, he's not the smoothest operator ever to wear O-6 pips.

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Iä! Iä! Moe fthagn!